Various techniques have been used to help a person quit the habit of smoking, especially of smoking cigarettes. One of the most common techniques uses oral substitution in which gum, hard candy, toothpicks, unlit cigarettes, and artificial cigarettes are placed in or held by the mouth of the person rather than smoking a cigarette. Various disadvantages occur with each of those oral substitutes. For example, it often is unprofessional looking to have gum, candy, toothpick, or other item in or held by the mouth, especially when speaking in a formal setting. Gum and candy can be injurious to the teeth and also can cause weight increase. Toothpicks often can be dangerous. Unlit cigarettes too easily present a temptation for lighting. Artificial cigarettes are expensive and are too similar to real cigarettes so that the hand and mouth actions associated with their use allow the person to continue with the habits generally associated with actual cigarette smoking; and, a result, it can be too easy to fall back into the habit of actual cigarette smoking.
The disadvantages to cigarette smoking are many. Examples of such disadvantages are potential injury to the person's own health, creation of displeasure and possibly health hazard to nearby individuals who do not smoke but inhale secondary smoke, depositing odor on clothing, on room walls and furniture, etc.
The present invention is directed to a kit and to a method to facilitate a person (sometimes referred to herein as a patient) stopping smoking, especially smoking of cigarettes, but also of smoking other items, such as cigars, pipes, etc. The invention also may be used for stopping another type of habit or changing certain behavior; but, as will be described in detail below, the invention is particularly suitable to facilitating the stopping of smoking cigarettes. The invention uses a manual tactile approach in which a tactile means is squeezed when there is a desire or urge to smoke a cigarette.
Various tactile devices intended to be grasped manually, i.e., by the hand of a person, are available commercially. One such device is made of a resilient polymer or foam material that can be grasped in a single hand and can be squeezed deforming the device under the force or pressure of the squeezing hand. The device regains its original shape when the applied force or pressure is relieved partially or fully, depending on the precise nature of the device. On some such device slots or slot-like zones are provided to position the fingers relative to the device and a relatively smooth surface fits against the palm of the hand as the fingers are closed in the slots on the device to apply the force or pressure to cause the mentioned deformation. Another commercially available device includes metal spring material located between a pair of handle portions. The handle portions can be held in the hand of a person and can be squeezed toward each other against the force exerted by the spring material as the person's hand is closed. The aforementioned devices are intended to increase strength, build muscle, etc. Other devices that provide such functions also may be available.
In the past psychological and quasi-psychological approaches have been used to help a person stop smoking. One example is an organization called "Smokers Anonymous", which is a help group in which individuals encourage others to stop smoking and in doing so provide self-encouragement. Also, some individuals actually visit psychologists and psychiatrists to assist them in quitting smoking. Each of these psychological or quasi-psychological procedures requires specific appointments and time scheduling which may be fairly irrelevant to the actual times when a desire to smoke a cigarette occurs to an individual. Scheduling of the appointments may be an inconvenience; the time at which the appointments are scheduled may be inconvenient; and a particular appointment may not be helpful with regard to an urge to smoke a cigarette occurring on a different day or at a different time.
The present invention provides self-help, encouragement, and inducement of a person or patient to use the tactile means and method when there is a desire to smoke a cigarette, whereby the urge is in a sense dissipated through the act of squeezing or otherwise applying force to the tactile means. The encouragement or inducement is provided in various media. One example is printed material in a booklet or other form. Another example is a tape recording that can be played by the person to receive encouragement and inducement to use a tactile means and to quit smoking. Other media also may be used to provide the encouragement and/or inducement information, such as a compact disc, video disc, videotape, floppy disc, etc., and appropriate play back means (e.g., a disc player, vcr, computer, etc.) may be used to play the information stored in the medium to the user.